Barry Dalrymple

District 1 (Waverley -
Fall River - Musquodoboit)

Barry Dalrymple hasn't been our favourite councillor. After getting elected, he earned a D in 2009, a D- in 2010 and then fell into seemingly permanent F mode for 2011 and 2012.

Dalrymple is still needlessly cantankerous (purposefully cantankerous we like), still leaks a lot of drool fighting defence in an imagined war between urban HRM and the oh-so-suffering Fall River. Still chews marbles. Probably still fears a solitary hippie carrying an Occupy sign.

But over the past few months Dalrymple has distinguished himself on the Environment and Sustainability Committee, which he chairs. In that capacity, he has stewarded through two important---indeed, essential---
initiatives: Solar City and a proposal to bring district heating to downtown Halifax, using harbour water as a heat pump for potentially every building all the way to Brunswick Street. CAO Richard Butts tried to derail both projects, but thanks to the hard work of the committee, and Dalrymple in particular, both are now reality. To put that achievement in perspective, consider what would've happened had climate-change denier and Al Gore-despiser Steve Streatch defeated Dalrymple in the October election.